


Failing to Hide Their Integrity

by zarabithia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mention of canon rape threat, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 20:42:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2322527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye learns more from Melinda than how to throw a good punch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Failing to Hide Their Integrity

**Author's Note:**

> [Title source.](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1311846-wolves-fail-to-hide-their-integrity-just-like-the-way) Also, credit to Marjorie Liu for Natasha's comments about wolves.

The wake-up calls are earlier than they had been with Ward, and so, Skye expects that the “training montages” (oh, hush, what’s the fun of being a super spy if you can’t have an internal Rocky soundtrack playing while your SO tries to give you a heart attack?) will be worse with May.

She doesn’t expect that May will invite her to sit down first thing in the morning.

"You have fury, and we need to put you in a state of calm before we can begin," May tells her.

"I thought we were channeling the hate-fu," Skye argues and she glances at the punching bag over May’s shoulder. She thinks of how weak she felt when Ward had kidnapped her, of how much it felt like being a helpless child in the hands of bullies with power all over again, and she wonders if the nausea that she has when she thinks of Ward will ever go away.

Or okay, the nausea that she has almost all the time these days, but it is worse when she thinks of Ward. If SHIELD was still in place, she might get over her hatred of the psychology profession and social scientists as a whole and get a therapist for it. 

Her therapist probably would turn out to be a fucking Nazi serial killer, with Skye’s luck, though. 

"We are. I’m not going to try to get you to get rid of it," May tells her. "Other people will tell you to move on, to forgive - " at this, May wrinkles her nose; it’s a good look and the old dude in Rocky didn’t put in that much emotion in his face during the entirety of the three movies he’d starred in before kicking the bucket. "I’ll never tell you that, Skye. Hate and anger are appropriate, especially after everything Ward did to you."

And it’s been long enough that Skye thinks she should be over it. She thinks that she shouldn’t still hurt all over when she hears his name. She thinks that she shouldn’t shiver uncontrollably when she remembers his threat -

Maybe I’ll just take what I want, his voice whispers in her mind and the urge to throw up is so strong that Skye sits down immediately and places her head into her hands. She doesn’t, thankfully, puke all over the training room floor.

When she looks up, Melinda is sitting across from her. There’s no disgust there for Skye’s moment of weakness.

"I’m sorry," Skye says anyway. "And I’m sorry in advance if I ever puke on you during our training sessions. Sure you still want to train me?"

/Please/ she silently begs. /Please show me how not to be weak/.

"I threw up on four people after Bahrain," May answers.

"You?" Skye asks in disbelief. "But you’re always so calm. How - ?"

But maybe she’s not. Maybe there’s more to Melinda May than Skye knows. Maybe Skye has learned more on the first day of training about Melinda May than Ward truthfully revealed during the entirety of his supposed training.

"I learned how to channel my hate-fu," May reminds her. "I learned that rage and anger are powerful tools and that the weak and cruel will try to deny you your right to have them. I learned that in order to prove those people wrong, I needed to train myself to unlesh my tools only in the proper circumstances."

"The best gun doesn’t matter if you don’t aim it first?" Skye offers.

She’s rewarded with a quick grin. May grinning. After everything that’s happened, that seems incredible. 

"When I was struggling after Bahrain, I met another girl. Maria thought she was being clever about placing us together. She wasn’t." Skye listens and marvels at the idea that she ever, ever thought that Melinda May was heartless or emotionless. Because the woman is sitting on a training room floor spilling more secrets than the Black Widow herself did during the great SHIELD info dump. "Wolves and girls both have teeth,’ she said to me. We’re taught to fear our teeth, and to worry that it might make us undesirable to others. Wolves are never afraid to use their teeth, and they do without hesitation. But only for survival and protection. They do not bite all the time, though the potential is always with them."

"Did you puke on her?" 

"Her partner’s done worse." 

"Wow," Skye says. "You left someone like that to come slum on our bus?"

It’s almost a laugh that she gets in response. “I had my reasons,” May answers. “And the coffee is better here.”

Some of Skye’s nausea passes with the laugh, and she takes a deep breath. “What’s step one to learning how to aim? Or bite. Or whichever metaphor we’re going with” she asks.

"Close your eyes," May tells her, and Skye does.

The nausea doesn’t pass away entirely, but for the first time in a long time, Skye thinks maybe that’s okay.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Failing to Hide Their Integrity [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6686038) by [blackglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass)




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